NCR All-Stars Kick Off Intense Weekend Saturday
NCR All-Star teams converge on Atlanta to see who can topple defending men's all-star champs Great Lakes this weekend.
Eight teams in two pools of four will play as many as six shortened games over the course of two days. It's a demanding schedule—three shortened pool games on Saturday, a quarterfinal and semifinal on Sunday, and also then the final and the 3rd-4th match for anyone who makes the semis.
As a result, depth is a crucial factor in success.
Great Lakes won the 2024 tournament, but the New England Independents were winners the two tournaments previous to that. New England, which represents probably the densest area of college teams, always fields two teams in the competition, and even brings a Rising Stars team to that tournament.
Men D1A Rankings Week 16
After the winter break we are bac with our D1A rankings.
Of course we're not going to have too much in the way of changes after the last ranking of last fall, but we do have Santa Clara moving into the Top 25.
This coming weekend we have Saint Mary's, Arizona, Central Washington, UCSB, Cal, and Cal Poly all in action so expect more movement after that.
Saint Mary's Over GCU; Fires Cancel Storer
Saint Mary's defeated Grand Canyon Saturday in an early-January D1A meeting.
The Gaels won comfortably, 92-3. It's a bit of a rebuilding time for both teams as they came in pretty young. But Saint Mary's obviously has a bit more depth with which to work.
Certainly Gaels Head Coach Tim O'Brien, who graduated 8 starters from last year's D1A championship team, six of which were drafted into the MLR, expects to see some growth.
"We had moments of brilliance combined with more moments of poor decision-making than need to be," O'Brien told GRR. "That said, this is a pretty joyful work in progress."
Saint Mary's played and beat Life West last week before a large number of their players suited up the next day for the California Conference North, which lost to the South.
Juma: Everything In My Life I Have a Say In It
Aaron Juma’s transfer from Wheeling to Mary Washington stirred up much more discussion, and indeed vitriol, than anyone might reasonably expect.
It was, and is, after all, just a college student making a college-student decision. But it somehow became more than that—NCR vs CRAA, college vs college, college vs MLR team—and because of that, the individual’s decisions somehow got overlooked. With commenters on social media saying Juma was unduly influenced by Marry Washington’s rugby program, or DC Old Glory (the MLR team that, remember, has already drafted him), Juma himself felt like his own decision-making agency was being forgotten. As a result, Juma reached out to Goff Rugby Report to talk about his own motivations. Here’s what he said:
What This Player's Transfer Tells Us
University of Mary Washington men's rugby has announced that star flanker Aaron Juma has transferred to UMW.
At GRR we don't cover a lot of transfers as news in and off itself because it simply takes too much time to track them, but this transfer carries with it a bit of weight. Juma, who has helped lead Wheeling University to a NCR CRC 7s title and a NCR D1 semifinal spot, is one of the top players in the NCR D1 sphere. A hugely popular player who has emerged as just a flat-out nice guy, Juma was selected 5th in the 2nd round of the 2024 MLR Draft, with Old Glory DC making the selection.
The two-time NCR D1 All American, Juma also toured with the NCR All American team in France last summer and he was, once again, a game-changer.
Will St Thomas Upset the D1AA Apple Cart?
Who is the best D1AA college team in the nation?
It’s a tough question to answer because there are two very separate competition going on and, in the past year, two championship teams that looked about as good as anyone.
We’re talking, of course, about University of Kentucky and University of San Diego.
Both teams have won their last two finals in convincing fashion. USD won the CRAA title in the spring of 2023 and again in 2024. Kentucky won the NCR title in the fall of 2023 and then this past fall also.
Average score of the final? 45-17 with the closes winning margin being 17 points.
But they haven’t played each other. They don’t even play at the same time. That’s mostly why GRR ranked the two teams tied as #1 in our final 2023-24 D1AA ranking.
South Beats North in High-Scoring California Conference All-Star Game
The South California Conference All-Stars beat their Northern counterparts 45-36 Saturday at Cal Poly, showcasing once again that rugby success can come from unexpected quarters.
While the Northern side was heavily Saint Mary’s, and might be favored due to their familiarity with one another, those players had played the day before against Life West, and perhaps were a little fatigued against the Southern California Conference players. However, there was more to it than that. A heavily Cal Poly Southern team showed up well while some players from Claremont Colleges, UCSB, and Cal State Long Beach also stood out.
California Collegiate North-South Game Set for Sunday
The California Conference will be holding a collegiate all-star match this Sunday, pitting top players from Northern and Southern California.
This is the second such game held, with the first one last January. Players from California Conference teams (plus one or two from outside) will suit up for a clash that will help coaches decide the California Grizzlies side to tour Japan in the summer. This will also be a showcase for players looking to get a look for the D1A All-American East-West match in the spring.
CRAA To Hold All-American East-West Match Next Spring
Coaches and announced for that All-American match will be at the game this weekend, too.
Men D1AA College Rankings Fall Week 15; Final Fall Ranking
We wrap up this fall in our D1AA rankings after the NCR final.
We actually had a lot of thinking to do about this. Yes, of course, Kentucky is #1. The Wildcats were wire-to-wire this fall and there wasn't much doubt most of the season that they should be. Only their weird 8-7 SCRC final against Clemson sowed any doubt. But the final ... well the final sealed the deal.
Can Kentucky lose their #1 spot at the end of the spring, now that we enter into ranking the winter-spring teams? Yes they can, but it's going to be tough. Whoever wins the CRAA D1AA championship will have to be dominant. Last year, they were. San Diego, if you remember, had a final in which they controlled the game over Iowa State. This time around might well be different.
NCR D1 Rankings Week 13
This is the penultimate NCR D1 ranking for the fall of 2024.
We will let the semifinals play out and then the final, and we'll update at the end. Right now we have our latest rankings and we have zero ... that's right, zero changes. And it speaks to what we often say about the rankings: if the rankings are perfect, that's boring. We're sorry, it's boring.
BUT ...
But there are a couple of things we'd like to discuss.
Big 10 Makes All-Conference Selections
Dublin, Ohio – The Big Ten Universities Rugby Conference has announced its 2024 All-Big Ten Conference selections.
Conference Champions Ohio State leads all schools with 14 All-Big Ten selections on the first, second, and Honorable Mention teams with eight Buckeyes landing on the first team. The All-Big Ten teams and individual awards were chosen by head coaches and administrators from each of the league’s eight clubs. The Ohio State Head Coach, Tom Rooney, was selected as the Big Ten Coach of the Year, however he deferred and requested that his whole staff be recognized.
Blowouts and Rankings Challenges in D2
GRR's D2 rankings have only had the opening week, so it's expected that they will change, but before the rankings come out here's a look at how the ranked teams did over this past weekend.
The over 50 teams in action (albeit some were D3 teams in mixed conferences) saw 12 out of the 21 relevant games we have results for had winning margins of 39 or more. So there is clearly a difference between levels.
And, also, interestingly, some of the teams that lost those games are ranked and expected to do well in their conference.
Kansas University Welcomed with Open Arms on Aussie Tour
The Kansas Jayhawks men's collegiate rugby team is in tour in Australia and having a blast.
They have visited Sydney, including the famous Sydney Opera House, and the New South Wales Rugby Union HQ in Daceyville, NSW.
Yesterday, they played their first game, taking on the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, about 100 miles north of Sydney. It had rained heavily before the game and the weather in fact shortened the game on what was a waterlooged pitch.
The Jayhawks were not too fazed by it all and got two tries from Blake Dreyer in a 10-0 short-game victory over the UofN Seahorses. Kansas showed some outstanding defense.
The team was welcomed with opened arms at the university, and reports are that they were treated to some of the best hosting KU Rugby has ever experienced.
Rugby East Unveils 2024 Schedule
The Rugby East Conference has announced its 2024 Fall season schedule.
The upcoming season introduces some changes, with Belmont Abbey College and Walsh University joining. Belmont Abbey joins the Rugby East after a number of successful years competing within the Southern Rugby Conference, while Walsh is a new program who welcomed their players and staff from the now defunct Notre Dame College.
NEWCRC, Colonial Coast Conferences Merging to Form New Conference
The Colonial Coast and the NEWCRC conferences will be combining forces to create the North Atlantic Collegiate Conference.
The thinking behind this move is multi-fold.
1. These two conferences, despite being multi-divisional and both men and women, overlap geographically. Both conferences are almost entirely in NEw England, and there are cases of teams that travel to games and pass colleges in the other conference on the way.
2. Teams are looking for competitive games. Both teams that win big and teams that lose big want and need games that are more competitive.
3 Joining forces will help organization and grow the game.
